


between the shadow and the soul

by extasiswings



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Bisexual Lucy Preston, Developing Relationship, F/M, Feelings, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 10:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14018745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: After everything, Lucy goes back to her mother’s house. She spends all of a day there before realizing she can’t stay, that as much as its walls are full of reminders of Amy, they’re also tainted with memories of her mother. The mother who lied to her. Who betrayed her. Who almost destroyed her.Garcia—Garcia goes with her. Because Lucy asks him to. Because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Because although their relationship may be unlabeled and undefined, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’s the most important person that he has left in the world.[Or: Sometimes victories are hollow. You learn to move on anyway.]





	between the shadow and the soul

In the end, they save the world. Rittenhouse dies, never to be resurrected. Lucy, Wyatt, Rufus, Garcia, Jiya, even Connor Mason and Denise—they win. 

Only, it doesn’t feel that way. It doesn’t feel like a victory when they all have scars—newer, thicker, and more jagged than any they may have started out with. 

Jessica Logan comes back from the dead, but despite their best efforts, she and Wyatt still end up separated.

Amy, Lorena, Iris—they don’t come back at all. 

After everything, Lucy goes back to her mother’s house. She spends all of a day there before realizing she can’t stay, that as much as its walls are full of reminders of Amy, they’re also tainted with memories of her mother. The mother who lied to her. Who betrayed her. Who almost destroyed her. 

Garcia—Garcia goes with her. Because Lucy asks him to. Because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Because although their relationship may be unlabeled and undefined, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’s the most important person that he has left in the world. 

(They’ve never kissed. At least, not when it was real instead of a means to sell an act. They’ve never talked about this thing between them either, because feelings are messy and complicated and sometimes painful, especially in the middle of a war, but Garcia knows how Lucy looks at him. If he thought she wanted to hear it, he’d say _love_ until his tongue could no longer form the word…)

Lucy’s intent on moving and selling the house, but she also has a lot of stuff—some hers, some her mother’s—that needs to be sorted through before either of those things can happen. And since Garcia is far from interested in running out immediately after fighting a war he can’t explain to anyone to find another job, much of that sorting and cataloguing falls to him. 

When he starts on the garage, he expects to find old tools, miscellaneous car-related supplies, maybe some sleeping bags or other camping gear. He doesn’t expect a professional camera and film canisters when he rescues a cardboard box from the top shelf of the corner cabinet and brings it inside. A single post-it note sits on top of a stack of what Garcia assumes are prints on photo paper, although the glossy edges have dulled over time.

_Lucy,_

_It seemed right that you should have these._

_All my love,_

_Sam_

_P.S. I hope you find what you’re looking for. You deserve it._

Sam? 

Unable to contain his curiosity, Garcia sets the note aside and flips over the first print in the stack. 

_Oh._

He freezes.

It’s not the outfit that makes his heart stop—although, the deep plunge of Lucy’s dress and the sharp contrast between the black lace of her bra and her skin could make anyone weak, and Garcia is certainly not immune—but the overall composition of the image. There’s a wistfulness, a vulnerability in Lucy’s face that Garcia wouldn’t expect to see in a photo. The fact that someone captured the shot at all speaks to a level of trust, of intimacy between her and the photographer that leaves Garcia feeling almost voyeuristic for staring. 

The rest of the pictures carry the same air of intimacy, ranging from quiet vulnerability to stylized eroticism. By the time Garcia reaches the bottom of the stack, he’s shaken. 

“Find something good?” 

Garcia starts as Lucy’s voice crashes over him like a bucket of ice water. And what is there to do? He can’t lie—the pictures are scattered across the living room table—but now that she’s here he regrets ever looking.

“I—”

To his surprise, Lucy laughs when she catches sight of one.

“Wow, I forgot I had those,” she says, coming to sit next to him on the couch. “I haven’t thought about them in years.”

“What—” Garcia’s throat feels like sandpaper and he clears it roughly before starting again. “What were they for?”

A small smile quirks the edges of Lucy’s mouth as she traces the lines of the closest image—one of her in wide-legged pants, a bra, and suspenders, one strap slipping off her shoulder as she looks straight into the camera. 

“I was in grad school, halfway through my dissertation,” she explains. “Sam—Samantha—she was an artist. She took these as part of a graduate showcase she did exploring artistic depictions of the feminine muse or something like that. We were…”

“Lovers,” Garcia fills in, and Lucy tips her head in acknowledgment. 

“She sent them back to me when she moved to L.A. The negatives are in those canisters. The camera was just…to remember her I guess.” 

(It occurs to him that for as much as he does know about Lucy, there’s plenty that he doesn’t. Little things like this—former partners, interests, etcetera—these are the things people in normal relationships might talk about. The everyday facts, not dramatic, emotional bombs like, _How do you feel about your mother secretly being Rittenhouse?_ They haven’t had a whole lot of normal. It’s…nice.)

Lucy’s fingers drift over the scattered images, finally stopping on the first one Garcia looked at. 

“You know, it’s funny—I think I still have this around somewhere,” she says. “Not that it would look the same. I’m not a grad student anymore. I’m—”

“Beautiful,” Garcia interrupts, the word tripping clumsily off his tongue. “You’re beautiful.”

(It’s awkward, not quite the right moment, but then, he’s never been good at that. Awkward, untimely, though it may be, it’s also true. And he’s wanted to say it for ages. More than that—she deserves to hear it.)

Lucy stares. Stares as though she’s trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together and isn’t quite succeeding. Garcia doesn’t say anything else, just shifts in the silence, waiting.

“Am I?” She asks finally. “Still?”

Someone else asking such a thing might be fishing for compliments, but this is Lucy. Lucy, with a troubled face and shadows behind her eyes that are far too serious for him to think for even a moment that she’s talking about being older.

No. _Still_ is far more than that. It’s _after you’ve seen me at my darkest, my lowest, my worst, with blood on my hands and stains on my soul—still?_

“More than ever,” Garcia replies.

How could he say anything else, _feel_ anything else? How could he, when she’s also seen him at his most monstrous, most wretched, but somehow wants him near her anyway?

“Garcia—”

He sees the decision in Lucy’s eyes before she moves, but he remains unprepared for the kiss that comes nonetheless. 

It’s a gentle thing, but at the same time, it’s the click of a key in a lock, a door swinging open into a world of possibilities. It’s coming home. 

As something that’s been building for years, it would be so easy to push the simple kiss into something desperate and passionate and overwhelming. But neither one of them does, content with slow exploration, a delicate catch and release of lips that leaves Garcia breathless enough as it is. 

Eventually, Lucy pulls back.

“Do you want this?” She asks.

Garcia’s hands curl around her waist, drawing her into his lap. “Was that not obvious?”

Lucy laughs. 

“Well, I thought so, but—You know, I was so mad at you when you moved in,” she confesses, and Garcia’s eyebrows shoot up. 

“What? Why?”

“You took the _guest room_ ,” she explains, shaking her head. 

“I—” _Oh._

(He had, in fact, taken the guest room. Because they hadn’t talked and he wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted and felt certain she would correct him if he was wrong to give her space.)

“I didn’t realize—”

“That when I said I wanted you with me it meant I _wanted you with me_?” Lucy asks. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“I was embarrassed! I thought I must have read something wrong,” she replies. “Gotten it mixed up in my head because we all almost died and were under stress and everything was very…emotionally fraught. And if I imagined it, I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to—”

Lucy bites her lip and Garcia completes the sentence in his head.

_Lose you._

(He doesn’t know exactly what happened between her and Wyatt, but he’s noticed the distance that evolved when Jessica returned and still hasn’t fully dissipated. He can’t blame her for not wanting to take the risk.)

“I love you.”

Lucy blinks. “You—”

“I’ve loved exactly four people in my life,” Garcia says. “My mother, my wife, my daughter…and you. I’ve loved you ever since the day you appeared out of the blue and gave me something to fight for and I will love you until—”

Lucy kisses him. 

(It’s addictive, kissing Lucy. He’s spent so long being afraid of this, afraid of wanting anything, needing anything, in case he lost everything all over again. But Lucy makes it so easy to want her, so easy to love her—he never had a choice. He was in the middle before he even knew he’d begun.)

When she pulls him to his feet and steers him toward her room, he follows without question or argument. There’s plenty more that he could say, that they should talk through, but nothing so pressing that he’s willing to stop her. 

“I love you, too,” Lucy breathes in between one kiss and the next, several moments later when her back is pressed up against her bedroom wall.

“I know,” Garcia replies, trailing kisses down the side of her neck. There’s a scar from a knife-wound on her shoulder—as soon as he gets her shirt off, he kisses that as well. 

His skin is too tight, electric and overheated, and he’s dizzy with how much he wants her hands on his skin. When Lucy finally slips her hands beneath his shirt, he shudders and muffles a groan against the hollow of her throat. 

(It’s almost too much. He shoves down the nervous energy in his stomach, shuts down the voice in his head that’s delighting in reminding him that he’s done this with exactly one other person and that the last time was…not exactly recent.)

“Bed?” He asks. Lucy hums her agreement, her nails scraping over his scalp as she tugs his mouth back hers. 

_This is Lucy_ , Garcia thinks as he lays her on the mattress. _It’s Lucy._

Lucy, who knows perfectly well what she’s getting into with him because he’s never made a secret of the fact that social interaction isn’t his strong suit. Lucy, who has helped him through his grief as he’s helped her through hers. Lucy, who knows him and sees him like no one else does. 

He doesn’t need to be nervous or afraid when it’s _Lucy_. 

Still, while this logic is all well and good, as soon as he strips off her sweatpants, he gets stuck. 

(Years, it’s been _years_ since he’s touched a woman like this, and he knows what he should do, but he can’t—)

“Garcia?”

Underneath him, Lucy’s eyes are warm with concern—concern that clears to understanding the next moment. 

“Do you trust me?” She asks.

“More than anyone,” he replies. 

“And you want this?” She clarifies. “Because, Garcia, we don’t have to—”

“I want this.” 

Lucy bites back a smile and reaches out.

“Give me your hands.”

_I’ll show you._

And she does. She covers his hands with hers and guides them wherever she wants them, maps out her body with his fingertips until he recovers himself well enough to engage in active exploration. And when he has, she still teaches him, only then it’s with gasped encouragements and arched hips and fingers twisting in the sheets. 

(Lucy calls out his name when he finally brings her off, and if he’d thought she was beautiful before, the way she looks in that moment redefines the word.)

After, Lucy curls herself around him with a contented sigh. Garcia skims his fingers over her side, her back, wherever he can reach—not trying to start another round, but confirming to himself that it isn’t a dream. 

“Do you remember D.C?” She murmurs. 

“Which time?”

“The second.”

How could he forget?

Lucy takes his silence as agreement.

“I still believe that, you know,” she says. “That God led you to me.”

Garcia’s throat gets tight at that. There’s plenty he could say in response—that he’s never stopped believing that since she first stood in front of him and said it, that maybe they were always meant to end up here, in this house, in this bed—but he doesn’t. 

Instead, he presses a kiss to the top of Lucy’s head and holds her closer. And whatever she takes from that response makes her smile because he feels her lips curve up against his neck. 

“Sleep, Garcia. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

And because it’s Lucy, he does.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be fluffy smut all the way through. And then I decided that it needed to be from Flynn's POV which has never led to anything fluffy ever. My emotions. 
> 
> The title for this comes from Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII. English translation:
> 
> I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,  
> or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.  
> I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
> in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
> 
> I love you as the plant that never blooms  
> but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;  
> thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,  
> risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
> 
> I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.  
> I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;  
> so I love you because I know no other way
> 
> than this: where I does not exist, nor you,  
> so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,  
> so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.


End file.
